Chapter Nineteen
Lola
Jace doesn’t look back. He just continues walking toward the school as if I’m not even there.
Through the windshield, I watch him cross the parking lot.
His shoulders are tense, hands buried deep in his jacket pockets, as that familiar careless swagger returns the closer he gets to the building.
The asshole mask he wears so effortlessly—the one everyone at Eastern High expects from Jace Cooper. The one I thought he had taken off.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I mutter under my breath.
Last night he stood beside me in a hospital room, quiet and steady, and somehow knew exactly what I needed.
Now this morning, he’s acting like he barely knows me. Like I’m just another person in his way.
Annoyance crawls up my spine because this is exactly what he does: pulls away and rebuilds the wall brick by brick until all that’s left is cold silence and distance.
I should have expected it because I knew exactly who Jace Cooper was.
I exhale and grab my tote bag from the passenger seat. My hands are trembling slightly, unsure if it’s from anger, hurt, or both.
“Congratulations, Lola,” I mutter as I climb out of the car. “You fell in love with a total a-hole.”
The words taste bitter on my tongue because it’s true. I did fall in love with him. And he’s going to break my heart.
The morning air is cool as I slam the door shut and walk toward the school. My footsteps echo across the pavement, each one feeling heavier than the last.
I can still see him ahead of me, cutting through the parking lot with his head down and disappearing around the side of the building where I know he goes to smoke before class.
Back to the life he knows. Back to being the guy who doesn’t let anyone in.
Students are already crowding the entrance, voices echoing through the hallway when I open the doors.
Eastern High. Same chaos, noise, and smell of cheap perfume and cafeteria food.
I barely manage to take ten steps down the hallway before someone calls my name.
“Lola.”
I turn just in time to be tackled into a hug. Aubrey wraps her arms around me so tightly that my tote bag almost slips off my shoulder completely.
“Oh my God,” she breathes into my hair.
I laugh quietly, caught off guard by the sudden attack.
Sam joins us a second later, wrapping her arms around both of us in a three-way hug that blocks half the hallway.
“I’m sorry,” Sam says against my shoulder. “For how we’ve been acting lately. For ignoring you the past couple of weeks.”
“We should have been there more,” Aubrey adds, pulling back to look at me. Her eyes are glassy. “I’m sorry.”
A warmth spreads through my chest, it’s like coming home.
“Thank you,” I say softly, meaning it. These girls are everything to me—my people, my safe place. I would be completely lost without them.
When they finally step back, I realize Noah and Reece are standing behind them.
Noah gives me a small nod, his typical quiet acknowledgment.
Reece lifts his chin in greeting. “Hey, Lola.”
“So, how is your dad?” Aubrey asks immediately, her hands still resting on my arms as if she’s afraid I might disappear if she lets go.
“He woke up last night,” I say, the words sounding strange as they leave my mouth.
Aubrey’s face lights up. “Lola, that’s amazing.”
“Oh my God, I’m so happy for you,” Sam adds, squeezing my hand.
We stand in the hallway talking for a few more minutes about my dad, school, and the ridiculous amount of homework I apparently missed while my life was in the process of falling apart.
Sam offers to share her notes. Aubrey promises to help me catch up in calculus even though she barely understands it herself.
And through everything, I want to tell them that Jace is acting like a total asshole right now.
That I have somehow foolishly, recklessly fallen in love with him.
That he is actually really incredibly great at …
sex. Like unbelievably great. The kind of great that makes you forget your own name and question every life choice that didn’t lead you to his bed sooner.
I want to tell them that he held me every night while I waited for a stupid phone call to tell me my fate, and that he looks at me sometimes like I am the only thing that matters in his world.
But I know I can’t. Not when they hate him so much.
Not when Aubrey still looks at him like he’s something she scraped off the bottom of her shoe.
Not when telling them would require choosing between the boy I love and my friends I need.
So I smile, nod, and act like everything’s okay. Just as Jace taught me.
As we walk down the hallway together, something else becomes clear.
People are watching Aubrey. People step out of our way as if we are royalty passing through. A group of juniors walks by, all eyes on her, and one of them almost stumbles over her own feet to say, “Hi, Aubrey.”
Aubrey offers a tight smile and a small wave.
Students move aside when she walks past. Conversations stop mid-sentence. A few people even lower their voices as we approach, like they are afraid she might hear whatever gossip they are spreading.
“What is going on?” I ask, glancing between my friends.
Sam grins. “Oh, you missed the coronation.”
“The what?”
“Since Aubrey took down Tia,” Sam says, gesturing dramatically at Aubrey, “she’s basically the new queen bee. Except, you know, without the actual bees. Or the crown. Or any desire whatsoever to be queen of anything.”
Noah chuckles under his breath.
I turn my head to Aubrey and smirk.
Her mouth tightens slightly.
“Don’t say anything. I fucking hate this,” she mutters under her breath.
“What?” I ask, still grinning.
She gestures vaguely at the hallway, the stares and the way people part around us like the Red Sea. “This.”
Reece snorts from behind us. “What? Being feared?”
“I don’t want people afraid of me,” Aubrey says. “Or thinking I’m some kind of... I don’t know, untouchable ice queen or whatever.”
Sam rolls her eyes. “Too late for that, babe. You’re the one who publicly dethroned the tyrant. You can’t just slay the dragon and expect people not to treat you like a hero.”
“Or the new dragon,” Noah adds helpfully.
Aubrey groans softly, rubbing her temple. “I wanted her to stop being a bitch and stop treating everyone like shit. I didn’t sign up for... this.”
For a moment, everything is almost normal again between us. Well, almost. But beneath it all, something keeps tugging at the edge of my thoughts.
Jace.
I glance down the hallway without meaning to. He is nowhere to be seen, which somehow irritates me even more.
“Come on,” Aubrey says, linking her arm through mine. “Let’s get you caught up before first period.”
We stop at my locker, and I spin the combination as Sam rattles off everything I missed.
Apparently, there was a pop quiz that everyone failed.
Mr. Henderson assigned a group project in chemistry that no one wants to do.
And someone started a rumor that Principal Dawson is having an affair with the gym teacher, which is both ridiculous and strangely believable.
I grab my books, shove them into my tote bag, and we head to first period together.
The rest of the morning drags by with lectures and notes.
Teachers give me sympathetic looks when I walk into class.
I try to focus. Try to care about the symbolism in The Great Gatsby or the quadratic formula or whatever else is being discussed.
But my mind keeps drifting back to Jace and how he walked away from me this morning without even looking back.
By the time third period ends, I am wound tight with frustration.
I go to my locker to exchange some books, turning the combination with more force than needed.
“Lola?”
I turn.
It’s Marcus Collins. Tall, lanky, with dark-rimmed glasses and a nervous smile that makes him appear younger than he is.
We had biology together last year. He is sweet and harmless.
The kind of guy who always offers to be your lab partner and actually does his share of the work instead of making you do everything while he plays on his phone.
He stops a few feet away, his backpack hanging off one shoulder. The expression on his face shows he’s not quite sure if he should have approached me.
“Hey,” he says, taking a step forward. “I wanted to ask... how’s your dad? I heard he was in the hospital.”
Something softens in my chest because this is what normal people do. They show concern and ask about your sick parent. They don’t ice you out in the car and later disappear to smoke weed behind a dumpster.
“He’s…” I start to say, with a genuine smile tugging at my lips. But I don’t get to finish because suddenly Jace is there, out of nowhere, as if he materialized from the shadows to ruin this one normal moment.
He moves quickly, grabbing Marcus by the front of his shirt and slamming him back against the lockers with a loud metallic crash that echoes down the hallway like a gunshot.
Marcus’s backpack hits the floor. His glasses slide crooked on his face.
“Stay the fuck away from her,” Jace growls, voice low and dangerous. The kind of voice that makes people take a step back involuntarily.
Marcus’s eyes widen behind his crooked glasses as his hands rise in quick surrender. His fingers shake slightly.
“I… I was just—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you were doing,” Jace cuts him off, leaning in closer until their faces are only inches apart. “You don’t talk to her. You don’t look at her. You don’t even fucking breathe in her direction. Got it?”
Marcus nods frantically, his face turning pale. Adam’s apple moves as he swallows hard. He looks like he might actually pass out. “Yeah… Yeah, I got it.”
“Jace,” I say, my voice coming out sharp and loud.
He turns his head and looks at me. His eyes are dark and unreadable, but there’s something else there too—a hint of something simmering beneath the surface that I can’t quite identify.